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Kolberg and Sachsenhausen, 1945--Visions of Fantasy and Reality

JF Ptak Science Books Post 1661

At the end of WWII there was a tale of two battles, both by the name of Kolberg. One was a propaganda tool filmed in Agfacolor at the request of Josef Goebbels, a movie begun in 1944 about the mythically-endowed victory of Germany over Napoleon at Kolberg. It was an epic, costly movie made at a time when the 180,000 "extras" composed of Wehrmacht troops could not be spared, but it was seen by Hitler and whoever was around to agree with him that a movie selling selflessness and sacrifice (blood sacrifice) was more valuable than a military victory1. When it was finally put to bed, the movie "opened" virtually nowhere in Berlin in January 1945, as the city was becoming a bombed-away shambles--much more so in the next three month. The visions of resistance-to-the-last-breath played in few places outside of Hitler's bunker, where the dictator professed the qualities of sacrifice and the fight-to-the-death messages in the movie, though not applying those necessaries to himself.

The other Kolberg battle was the Battle of Kolberg (a Baltic seaport city in Pomeria located about halfway between Berlin and Koenigsberg), which took place in real life from 4-18 March 1945. It was a fight between the Germans and combined forces of the Soviet and Polish armies--it ended in Polish hands on the 18th following the retreat of the Germans and he destruction of most of the city.

It is ironic that the defeat of the Nazi forces in the real city of Kolberg occurred at nearly the same time as the wasteful film of the 1807 battle extolling the virtues of heroism and sacrifice was released.

It is interesting too that the actor depicting the leading German hero in the movie Kolberg (directed Veit Harlan and Wolfgang Liebeneiner) Heinrich George--who acted in a number of Nazi propaganda films after finding ways to get back into favor following his pre-Nazi pro-Communist politics--found himself arrested and imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he died of "complications" in 1946.

Sachsenhausen was one of the longest-lived concentration camps, being in operation from 1936 to 1950. From its beginning to May 1945 it was of course a Nazi concentration camp (Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen), where from 1943 until the fall of Nazi Germany it was also an extermination camp. As many as 200,000 people were seized and sent through Sachsenhausen and its satellite/tributary camps. From the end of 1945 to 1950 it was operated by the Soviet Union, where another 15,000-30,000 people were imprisoned, Heinrich George being one of them.

In addition to the many horrors of Sachsenhausen, there was also this--it was the center of a plot to destroy the British economy with the production and distribution of a hundred million pounds worth of counterfeit British currency. The lead counterfeiter at Sachsenhausen, Salomon Smolianoff (a gifted artist who once said "why make art when you can make money?") was an inmate with exceptional skills and who basically headed the team of workers responsible for this effort, For good work in his part of pulling down the economy of Great Britain, Smolianoff was rewarded with an occasional go at a ping pong table, as well as less-rancid pieces of meat.

[One of the forged Sachsenhausen notes.]

This was operation Bernhard, named for its director, SS Major Bernhard Kruger (the leader of the VI F 4a Unit in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office) or RSHA), who was responsible for the operation from 1942, and which eventually extended from Sachsenhausen to other camps, most notably a major operation at Auschwitz. More than 134,000,000 pounds of what the Brits considered to be the most perfect counterfeits ever were produced, but for various reasons--not the least of which was sabotage instigated by extraordinarily brave concentration camp internees--the vast part of the plan was never implemented.

As it turns out, Smolianoff survived Sachsenhausen, survived the war, and then became a puff of smoke. He was a wanted-but-not-found fugitive, and spent his last days in Brazil, painting. And creating toys. He died in 1976.

Bernhard Kruger (born in 1904), also survived the war. When the pound-forging plan was scuttled in 1944, he moved the idea over to American currency, which he worked on until the end of the wat. Although he was kept by the British for two years, and then by teh French for one year, he was eventually released, and faced no charges until a Denazification court ordered him to trial, where he was somehow acquitted. He died an old man, aged 85, in 1989, in his bed.

Notes:

1. At least this is so as reported by Sir Ian Kershaw in his biography, Hitler, 1936-1945.